Public Reactions to the Qantas grounding crisis

7/29/2019 Public Reactions to the Qantas grounding crisis

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Abstract

Despite a growing number of studies on crisis communication, there is very little research that

examines corporate crises from a consumer perspective, particularly for crisis case studies

within Australia. Using Yins (2002) framework for case study research methods, this research

group conducted a qualitative content analysis of 1121 audience comments attached to three

news articles on the 2011 Qantas grounding crisis. Using Weiners Attribution Theory (1986,

1995) and the qualitative content analysis software; Leximancer, we used these comments to

deconstruct audience perceptions of the Qantas crisis and isolate different emotional,

attitudinal and behavioural responses. Our first major finding indicated that the majority ofaudience members attributed the cause of the Qantas crisis to managerial decisions or union

action. Working Conditions and Government policy was also found to be secondary factors to

the crisis cause. We also found these four causal factors to be strongly associated with

audiences responsibility judgments. The four key responsible stakeholder groups that

emerged from our analysis were Alan Joyce (Qantas Management), Unions, Employees and

the Labor Government. Another important focus of this study examined audiences crisis

emotions. Anger was found to be the predominant emotion that emerged from our analysis and

was largely directed towards management and union stakeholders. Sympathy also emerged as

a secondary emotion but was largely directed towards employees and management. Our final

research finding uncovered a number of behavioural intentions within the audience comments.While the majority of these behavioural intentions centre around avoidance and negative

purchase intentions, a few increased investment intentions also emerged. Although our

Leximancer analysis was restricted by a number of technical limitations, these research

findings indicate that Weiners Attribution Theory can be successfully applied to a real life

crisis case study.

Tamara Dorrington (s4177314) | Sarah Natasha Raziff (s4275762) | Jasmine Soriano

(s4272997) | Kate Fitzpatrick (s4201686) | Roxanne Lim (s4256084)

Supervisor: Lyn McDonald

The University of Queensland, 2012


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Public Reactions to the Qantas Grounding Crisis 2

Public Reactions to The Qantas Grounding Crisis,

A Qualitative Content Analysis

A corporate crisis often poses an unpredictable threat that can have resounding effects

on an organization and its stakeholders (Coombs, 1999, 2010). These effects are largely

dependent on how effectively the crisis is managed (Coombs, 2010) and upon stakeholders

perceptions of the crisis cause (McDonald, Sparks & Glendon, 2010). To date there has been

very little research on consumer reactions to corporate crises (McDonald, et al. 2010),

especially for crises outside the United States (Lee, 2004).

In order to understand the implications of this research project on crisis

communication, one must first gain an understanding of the Qantas grounding crisis. As one

ofAustralias leading domestic and international airline brands, Qantas has a well-established

reputation for upholding excellence in safety, operational reliability, engineering,

maintenance and customer service (Qantas, 2012, pp.2). On October 2011, the company

faced one of the largest corporate crises in its 95 years of history, a crisis that had widespread

negative impacts on its reputation. After months of failed negotiations between management

and union representatives,around 4000 Qantas employees took part in an organized strike,

demanding greater job security, better wages and fairer working conditions.Qantas

management responded by grounding its entire domestic and international fleet, locking out

staff involved in the action and stranding around 68,000 passengers worldwide (Sydney

Morning Herald, 2011). The Federal Government also became involved in the dispute,

threatening to terminate strikes under the Fair Work Act if negotiations between union

members and management proved unsuccessful (new.com.au, 2011)


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Our case study analysis adds to existing crisis research by analyzing 1121 audience

comments attached to three news articles on the Qantas grounding crisis: 734 comments from

the Sydney Morning Herald article (Live: FWA orders Qantas dispute terminated, 2011), 171

comments from the ABC article (Qantas grounds its entire fleet, 2011) and 216 comments

from the news.com.au article (Qantas crisis: Who won and who's to blame). Using Weiners

Attribution Theory (1986, 1995) as a theoretical framework, we used the comments from

these three articles to deconstructed audience perceptions of the Qantas crisis and isolate

audience members different emotional, attitudinal and behavioral responses.

While studies into crisis communication are a popular area of research, much of the

existing research has used experimental designs to examine the effectiveness of different

types of crisis accounts or apologia. A case study analysis of audience reactions to the 2011

Qantas grounding crisis has many wider implications for crisis management strategies in

future. First, by evaluating audience comments, this study provides an insight into

stakeholder crisis reactions that may have greater generalizability than experimental studies.

Second, knowledge of audiences attribution processes will help future public relations

managers to mitigate negative crisis outcomes and manage brand reputation more effectively.

Literature Review

To date, there has been very little research on consumer reactions to corporate crises

(McDonald, et al., 2010) particularly for crisis cases outside the United States (Lee, 2004).

The majority of existing literature has approached crisis communication from an

organisational perspective, using experimental design to examine the relationship between

different types of crisis accounts and consumers purchase intentions (Lee, 2004). Very little

research has taken a content analysis approach, examining audience reactions to real life

crises cases. In bridging this gap, it is relevant to examine real life audience perceptions of


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crisis cause their association with different emotional, attitudinal and behavioral responses.

According to Lee (2004), taking a consumer orientated approach should provide valuable

insights into how individuals understand and react to organisational crises. Such knowledge

would help public relations managers to mitigate negative crisis outcomes and manage brand

reputation more effectively.

Theoretical Framework: Weiners Attribution Theory (1986, 1995)

Our research was primarily guided by Weiners (1986, 1995) Attribution Theory

(WAT), which examines the psychological process by which individuals understand and react

to external events. While WAT was originally used as a theoretical framework for examining

interpersonal relationships, it has been successfully applied to the context of company crises

(McDonald et al., 2010). Adapting Weiners (1986, 1995) Attribution Theory (WAT)

audiences observe and interpret events, such as the Qantas crisis, making attributions about

its cause along two causal dimensions: Locus (whether the cause was internal or external to

the company) and Controllability (whether the cause was controllable or uncontrollable). The

interpretation of crisis cause under these two constructs leads to a responsibility judgement

that, in turn, results in emotions, which then influences behaviors (McDonald et. al.,

2010). Weiner (1995) also suggests that mitigating circumstances or personal relevance may

also impact the individuals responsibility judgement or the strength of their emotional

reaction. The relationship between the various components of Weiners (1986, 1995)

theoretical framework is depicted in the flow chart below.


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Stimulus in the

form of an

event

Attribution of

Cause (locus,

stability andcontrollability)

Responsibility

Judgement

Emotional

Response

Behavioural

Intentions

In order to successfully apply Weiners (1986, 1195) Attribution Theory (WAT) to

the context of the 2011 Qantas grounding crisis, we first examined the individual components

of this theoretical framework.

A) Attributions of Cause (Locus and Controllability)

As previously discussed, Weiners (1986, 1995) Attribution Theory (WAT) suggests

that audiences evaluate an event and make attributions about its cause along two dimensions.

The Locus dimension refers to the location of the crisis cause as being either internal or

external to the organisation (Lee, 2004). Controllability refers to whether the crisis cause is

within the control of the organisation or not (Lee, 2004). According to Lee (2004) a crisis

cause that is within the boundaries of an organisation (internal locus) is also often perceived

as controllable. Likewise, a crisis cause that judged to be outside the organisation (external

locus) is often viewed as uncontrollable (Lee, 2004). However Coombs (1995) and

McDonald et. al. (2010) both hypothesised that crises could be internal and controllable

(neglected maintenance), internal and uncontrollable (employee sabotage), external and

controllable (failure to comply with government regulations) as well as external and

uncontrollable (terrorism sabotage). The graph below represents the causal matrix

summarized by McDonald et. al. (2010)

Mitigating

Circumstances


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In the context of the Qantas crisis, this leads us to the following research questions:

Research Question 1: What are the audience perceptions of the key contributing

factors to the crisis cause?

Research Question 2: Are these key factors internal and controllable or external

and uncontrollable?

According to Coombs (1995) the causal dimensions of Locus and Controllability have

a direct impact upon an audiences crisis response. A study by Folkes (1984) found that locus

and controllability had separate effects on customers responsibility judgments, emotions and

behavioral intentions. Lee (2004) also suggested that, in a crisis context, events that were

perceived to be internal and controllable were viewed more negatively by audience members

than those that were considered external and uncontrollable (Lee, 2004). Although separating

these two constructs was challenging in analyzing audience comments, the following research

questions aided us in mapping out ideas for our Leximancer data analysis.

Research question 3: What crisis causes are associated with negative and positive

crisis reactions?

Internal External

Controllable Neglected Maintenance Failure to comply with

government regulations

Uncontrollable Employee Sabotage Terrorism Sabotage


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B) Responsibility Judgment

The next step in Weiners (1986, 1995) Attribution Theory is the process by which

individuals attribute responsibility. Social psychologists Fincham and Jaspars (1980) noted

that, in an interpersonal context, individuals would often go beyond the attributions of

causality to make judgments about who should be held accountable for an observed outcome.

Likewise, audiences will assign crisis responsibility after a causal attribution (Lee, 2004).

The direction and degree of responsibility judgment will therefore depend upon the

audiences attributions of crisis cause (Lee, 2004). Coombs and Holladay (1996, 2002) and

Jorgensen (1994, 1996) both used Weiners (1986, 1995) causal dimensions of locus and

controllability as the foundation for their studies into crisis communication. All found

perceptions of crisis cause to be a major determinant of responsibility judgments and

subsequent stakeholder reactions. Of particular relevance to our current study, Lee (2004)

found crises that were perceived to be internal (locus) and controllable (controllability) were

more likely to bring about responsibility judgments aimed at the company and its managers.

On the other hand, audiences tended to attribute less blame to the company in situations

where the crisis cause was viewed as external and uncontrollable, instead reacting with

sympathy and support (Lee, 2004). In analysing audience comments through the use of the

Leximancer program, we aim to uncover public sentiment and reveal what major stakeholder

groups or individuals are held responsible for the 2011 Qantas crisis.

This leads us to the following research question:

Research question 4: What stakeholder groups are perceived to be responsible

for the crisis?


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C) Crisis Emotions

According to Choi and Lin (2009) there is a strong need to explore a variety of crisis

emotions, in particular the impact that crisis emotions have upon attitudes toward the

company and upon subsequent behavioral intentions (McDonald et. al., 2010). Several

studies (e.g. Coombs & Holladay; 1996, 2002, Jorgensen; 1994, 1996 and Lee; 2004) have

used Weiners causal dimensions of locus and controllability, finding causal attributions to be

a major determinant of stakeholder crisis emotions. McDonald et. al. (2010) found that crisis

controllability was the single strongest predictor of anger, sympathy and negative attitude

while Lee (2004) found that in cases where crises were viewed as uncontrollable, pity was

elicited. In McDonalds (2010) study, internal crises were found to correspond with fear and

surprise while external crises were more likely to result in a sympathetic emotion response

(McDonald et al., 2010). These findings validate the concept within Weiners (1986, 1995)

Attribution Theory that causal attribution precedes responsibility judgment, which in turn

affects crisis emotions. This leads us to the following research question for our Qantas crisis

analysis:

Research question 5: What audience emotions have emerged?

D) Behavioral Intentions

While responsibility judgment affects emotions, emotions, in turn, impact upon

behavioral intentions (Weiner, 1995). Several studies have investigated the relationship

between crisis emotion (anger, fear, sadness, joy, surprise) and consumersbehavioral

intentions. A review of previous literature by McDonald et at. (2010) found that anger


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influences punitiveness (Jorgensen, 1996), negative purchase intentions (Coombs &

Holladay, 2007), negative word of mouth (Coombs & Holladay, 2007) and indirectly lowers

investment intentions (Jorgensen, 1996). Sadness lead to a higher reliance on emotional

support while fear was associated with venting intentions or avoidance (Jin, 2009). Coombs

and Holladay (2007) also found that dissatisfied customers were more likely to voice

negative sentiments about a product or service than happy customers. This leads us to our

final research question regarding the application of Weiners (1986, 1995) Attribution Theory

to audiences Qantas crisis response:

Research Question 6: What audience behavioral intentions have emerged?

Based upon the review of existing literature, the current case study examined how

Weiners (1986, 1995) Attribution Theory can be applied to a current crisis case in Australia

using actual stakeholder comments. In particular, we expect to uncover associations between

Weiners (1986, 1995) causal constructs (locus and controllability),judgments of

responsibility, emotions and behavioral intentions within the context of audience comments.

Methodology

According to Yin (1994), case studies involve a methodical way of looking at an

instance or event within its real-life context. It is a process of collecting data, analyzing

information, and reporting the results in order to gain a sharpened understanding of why a

particular event occurred, and what might be relevant to future research in the area (Yin,

1994). This research project involved the development of a case study analysis that followed

a reputation crisis faced by the Australian national airline, Qantas, in October of 2011. By

conducting a content analysis of 1121 audience comments, this group was able to deconstruct


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the crisis narrative and examine audiences attribution process during the 2011 Qantas crisis.

Yin defined the research design as a sequence that links data to the studys research questions

and findings. In order to address our research questions, this group adopted a variation of

Yins (1994) case study design, collecting appropriate evidence, analysing the data and

reporting on the findings.

Step one of Yins (1994) case study research methods involved the collection of data

for content analysis. Yin (1994) noted that data collection could rely on many sources of

evidence, one of which includes documentation such as media articles. Following Yins

(1994) data collection guidelines, this group collected 1121 reader comments attached to

three news articles on the Qantas crisis, including 734 comments from the Sydney Morning

Herald online (Live: FWA orders Qantas dispute terminated), 171 comments from the ABC

website (Qantas grounds its entire fleet) and 216 comments from news.com.au (Qantas crisis:

Who won and who's to blame). We then inputted the 1121 audience comments into an excel

spreadsheet, organising them on the basis of media source and comment characteristics.

The second step in Yins cases study research methods is data analysis. This involves

examining and categorizing evidence that is relevant to the study (Yin, 1994). To achieve

this, we conducted a content analysis, aided by the concept association software; Leximancer.

According to Hsieh and Shannon (2005) a qualitative content analysis is one of numerous

research methods used to analyse text data. Qualitative content analyses go beyond a simple

word association and instead involves an in depth classification of language into an efficient

number of categories with similar meanings (Weber, 1990). Leximancer is a software

program designed to perform this conceptual analyses of text data in a largely independent

manner (Smith, 2003). It is able to analyse large volumes of comments and to statistically

assess the association between words, identifying emergent themes in the body of text. The


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basis for Leximancers qualitative data analysis is a concept association matrix that is built

from frequency data (Rooney, 2005). The result is a visual map and insight dashboard that

identifies the relational characteristics of key concepts (Middleton, Liesch & Steen, 2011).

However this raw Leximancer data requires further human analysis. By further analysing

these Leximancer results we were able to analyse audience reactions to the Qantas grounding

crisis under the construct of Weiners (1986, 1995) attribution theory.

The final phase of Yins cases study research methods involves reporting the results

and checking their validity. According to Yin (1994) content analyses involve a danger of

committing what has been called the narrative fallacy. This fallacy consists of a propensity to

simplify data through a preference for compact stories over complex data sets (Yin, 1994). In

case study research, the way to avoid the narrative fallacy is no different from any other

error: the usual consistent checks for validity and reliability in how data is collected, analyzed

and presented. Therefore it was important to conduct a thorough check of the Leximancer

results, correlating Leximancer findings with contextual examples within the article

comments and providing exemplar samples of audience statements.

Research Results

Leximancer is able to generate two types of sentiment analysis reports: a visual

concept map showing a detailed assembly of prominent concepts, and an insight dashboard

which provides quantitative rankings of concepts and their associated terms (Middleton, et al,

2011). The insight dashboard generates information about the data set by analysing the

frequency, strength and prominence of reoccurring terms within the text. It then organises

these terms into categories, which are groups of recurring sentiments, and concepts, which

are ideas that bear a strong contextual link to these categories (Middleton, et al, 2011).

Leximancer also automatically identifies compound concepts, which are two terms that are


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mentioned adjacent to one another within the context of a larger category (Middleton, et al,

2011). Leximancer analyses the data set using a default thesaurus which it uses to identify

terms as positive evidence towards a certain sentiment or category. The user can also adjust

the focus of the output results by controlling a number of manual settings within the program.

By adjusting these settings, results in answer to our research questions were analysed.

Research Question 1 asked what are the audience perceptions of the key contributing

factors to the crisis cause? In order to answer this research question, a preliminary

Leximancer analysis, examining key causal factors, was conducted. The concept map in

figure 1 was generated by inputting all 1121 audience comments into the Leximancer

program and adjusting the thesaurus settings to recognise related terms (such as Alan Joyce

and AJ). The resulting concept map clearly illustrates the key causal categories and maps

their association with surrounding terms. The main causal concepts that emerge from figure

1 are union action, managerial decisions, working conditions and industrial action.

These four terms appear as prominent categories from which smaller, related concepts stem.


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FIGURE 1:LEXIMANCER CONCEPT MAP

The concept map in figure 1 forms the foundation for the subsequent graphs 2 and 3, where

these key concepts are examined in more depth using related data from the insight

dashboard. Examining these four main causal categories and their related terms, we can begin

to deconstruct the narrative surrounding the Qantas crisis. In particular, we can begin to

analyse audience members attribution process in terms of Weiners theoretical framework.


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Figure 2 (below) is a pie chart, isolating the four main causal categories and their associated

terms. The terms surrounding each main category represent the associated concepts that

appeared with relative frequency and strength under each main causal category. Terms such

as pathetic, appalled and abominable were linked strongly with Managerial Decisions,

while Union Action was associated with concepts such as bloody minded, bashing and

dominated. Industrial Action was positioned within the context of government policy with

related terms such as Gillard,Fair Work Act and Labor. Finally, Working Conditions

can be seen positioned alongside key terms like employees, pay and unreasonable

FIGURE 2:FOUR KEY CRISIS FACTORS AND RELATED TERMS


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Figure 3 shows a further breakdown of each of the four main causal categories. Each

pie chart was generated using the quantitative data in the insight dashboard, which outlines

the strength, frequency and prominence of the four key categories and their related terms.

The first of the four pie graphs explores the category of Managerial Decisions. Here

we can see that the two major concepts associated with the managerial decisions category are

MGMT (an acronym for management) and Alan Joyce. Brand, restructures andfailures

are secondary concepts that also appeared in association with Managerial Decisions.

The second pie graph depicts the breakdown of concepts associated with the category

of Industrial Action. Here, industrial action is positioned closely with concepts such as

Gillard, Fair Work Australia and Federal Government. Therefore it is evident that this

causal category refers to the impact of government policy on the Qantas crisis.

In the working conditions pie graph, the strong association between terms such as

employees, afford and earn with terms such as pay rise, wages, and salary indicate

that one of the causes of this crisis involved current pay schemes and unfair working

conditions.

Finally, Union action is also identified as a main contributing factor to the crisis

cause. This pie graph explores this category by highlighting some of its key associated terms.

In particular, one can see the clear association between unions, demands and striking. In

the context of the Qantas crisis, union groups made a number of demands regarding current

working conditions and this was responsible for a large majority of subsequent employee

strikes.


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FIGURE 3: GRAPHS EXPLORING THE COMPOUND CATEGORIES OF MANAGERIAL DECISIONS, WORKING

CONDITIONS,INDUSTRIAL ACTION, AND UNION ACTION

Research Question 2 was concerned with the application of Weiners (1986, 1995)

causal dimensions of Locus and Controllability. It asked whether the key causal factors in the

Qantas crisis (identified in figures 13) could be classified as internal and controllable or

external and uncontrollable. As previously discussed in our literature review, past studies on

crisis communication have shown that crises can be either be internal and controllable


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(neglected maintenance), internal and uncontrollable (employee sabotage), external and

controllable (failure to comply with government regulations) or external and uncontrollable

(terrorist sabotage). If we adapt our understanding of McDonald et al. (2010) we can apply

the following attribution matrix to the current Qantas case study.

FIGURE 4:QANTAS ATTRIBUTION MATRIX

.


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Research question 3 asks what crisis causes can be associated with negative and

positive crisis reactions? Figure 5 addresses this research question by using Leximancer

insights to compare the appearance of favourable and unfavourable terms within the context

of audience comments. To justify the results, Leximancers insight dashboard provides

examples of each sentiment with comments directly from the data set. The graph below

shows that audience comments carry both favourable and unfavourable connotations towards

the concepts of management, industrial action, and employees. The balance of favourable and

unfavourable terms for all four causal concepts (managerial decisions, union action, working

conditions and industrial action) is consistent with our preliminary sample of audience

comments.

FIGURE 5: UNFAVOURABLE VS FAVOURABLE TERMS


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Figure 6 addresses research question 4 (What stakeholder groups are perceived to be

responsible for the crisis?) by using a Leximancer visual concept map depicting the major

stakeholder groups identified in the audience comments. The main stakeholder groups that

are identified in this visual concept map are:

Alan Joyce Employees Unions Government Qantas customers Australians in general

FIGURE 6:RESPONSIBLE STAKEHOLDER CLUSTERS


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Based on the information obtained in figure 4, we can take a step further and

categorise these major stakeholder groups as either internal or external to the company. As

the CEO and head of the Qantas company, Alan Joyce is identified as largely responsible for

managerial decisions. Baggage handlers, ground staff and cabin crew are grouped under the

stakeholder heading of employees, while the Australian Licenced Engineers Union

(ALAEA), the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian and International Pilots

Union (AIPA) are grouped under the stakeholder heading of unions. Finally, the government

is also identified as a responsible stakeholder group, with many audience comments citing the

role of Julia Gillard, the Labour government and the Fair Work Act in failing to mitigate the

industrial dispute.

FIGURE 7:RESPONSIBILITY JUDGEMENT


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Figure 8 is a visual representation of the crisis emotion that have emerged from our

anlaysis of audience comments. This graph is based on the information taken from

Leximancers insight dashboard about the strength, prominence and frequency ofvarious

sentiments. Anger was the predominant emotion that emerged from the data set and was

directed toward all stakeholders, particularly unions and management. While sympathy

emerged as another primary meotion, it was used to express empathy towards workers

plights while Sorry was used in relation to customers, employees, and industrial action.

Support was also a prodominant sentiment that emerged and was expressed toward all

parties in relatively equal degrees.

FIGURE 8:AUDIENCE EMOTIONS


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Due to the informal nature of comments and the variation in sentence structure, it was

challenging to isolate behavioural intentions from the data set using the Leximancer software.

However, a preliminary manual analysis uncovered a number of trends in consumers

behavioural intentions. Major findings indicated that of the 4% of comments that implied a

behavioural intention, most were negative, while a small number showed positive purchase or

investment intentions. Figure 9 shows a cross selection of comments extracted from the data

in response to research question 6. This conceptual depiction summarises the main

behavioural intentions that emerged from the Qantas crisis.

FIGURE 9:BEHAVIOURAL INTENTIONS


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Figure 10 is based on a manual analysis of comments over all three news sites, and

shows the frequency of behavioural intentions that have emerged from the data set. The

category miscellaneous intentions refers to behaviours such as buying shares, venting

action, or switching carriers.

FIGURE 10: BEHAVIOURAL INTENTIONS FREQUENCY

Discussion

This case study analysis uncovered a number of key findings that are relevant to crisis

communication research.First, our research found that audiences perceived the key

contributing factor to the Qantas crisis to be union action, managerial decisions, working

conditions and industrial action with the majority of comments attributing the crisis to

managerial decisions and union action. When analysing these key causal factors under

Weiners dimensions of Locus and Controllability, managerial decisions can be interpreted as

both internal and controllable to the company while Union Action can be seen as both


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external and uncontrollable. If we analyse workingconditions in the context of its related

terms, we can understand that this cause is about employees observations of their working

conditions and the resulting strikes. In particular, this casual factor is about employees being

unhappy with current circumstances and demanding better working conditions from Qantas

management. While employees are internal to the company, their objections to their working

conditions and the ensuing strikes can be understood as relatively uncontrollable. Finally,

industrial action in seen within the context of government policy and work place regulation.

While the government is external to Qantas, the companys compliance with government

regulations is certainly within managements control. Therefore we classify this causal

concept as both external and controllable. These findings build upon previous research by

Coombs (1995) and McDonald et. al. (2010) - that Locus and Controllability can have

separate effects on audiences attribution process and that crises may not only be

internal/controllable and external/uncontrollable but also internal /uncontrollable and external

/controllable.

The second major finding of this research project linked causal attributions to

audiences responsibility judgements. When audiences identified the major causal factor as

managerial decisions they also tended to attribute blame to Qantas management, in

particular to Qantas CEO; Alan Joyce. The resulting emotions that emerged from this

attribution were anger towards Qantas management and support for unions and employees.

This sentiment is exemplified in the audience comment As a QF F of 20+ years I wish to

register my total support for the staff and crew at QF over their current legitimate and

understandable attempts to prevent Management from destroying the airline which I hold so

dear. This customer is sick and tired of being exploited by senior management and the

board. (ABC.net.au, 2011). These findings are similar to those of Lees (2004) who


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stated that crises that were perceived to be internal (locus) and controllable (controllability)

would bring about responsibility judgements aimed towards the company and its managers.

Another key trend in the data identified union action as the main cause of the crisis.

These audience members tended to attribute blame to unions and employees involved in

striking action. When union action, which we identified as external and uncontrollable, was

attributed as the primary cause of the crisis, audience members tended to respond with anger

towards unions and employees and sympathy towards the company and its managers. One

example of this is conveyed in the audiences comment: Well done Alan Joyce. Striking is

the lowest form of human behaviour in my opinion. I hope all these lazy striking staff lose

their jobs and are replaced by hardworking people, who unlike Qantas employees

appreciate their jobs, rather than expect that they are their god given right (ABC.net.au,

2011).

The third major finding in our case study uncovered a number of audience crisis

emotions. While we anticipated finding negative audience emotions such as anger and

helplessness, we also uncovered a number of positive emotions that expressed support and

sympathy towards all stakeholder groups. One such comment that expressed empathy

towards the Qantas brand was sourced from the Sydney Morning Herald (2011), Qantas

made the right decision and any company which has a strong union presence should do the

same if their future is threatened by them. The Australian dollar is strong and to remain

competitive globally, hard decision must be made.

This leads us to our final major research finding. As could be expected, positive

audience emotions were found to be associated with favourable behavioural intentions while

negative emotions were found to predict negative purchase intentions. While 81% of

behavioural intentions centred on avoidance, complaint and negative purchase intentions,


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another 14% of the behavioural intentions indicated that the audience intended to continue

flying with Qantas, signifying the audiences loyalty to the brand. An example of such

positive behavioural intentions is evident in the following audience comment from

new.com.au: I have always flown Qantas and always will, and to those who say they will

never fly them again, you know you will let all those FF perks go to waste?? Good on you Mr

Joyce. (News.com.au, 2011, pp. 8).

Although the technical limitations of Leximancer restricted our study, our research

project successfully applied Weiners (1986, 1995) Attribution Theory to audiences

attribution process in a real life crisis case. These research findings provide valuable insights

into how individuals understand and react to organizational crises in the real world.

Knowledge of this type will assist public relations managers in creating effective reputation

management strategies in the future.

Limitations

Although our case study can be considered largely effective, we did encounter several

limitations that impeded the progress of our research. Most of the limitations we encountered

involved the technical capabilities of Leximancer. Of particular relevance to our content

analysis was Leximancers inability to comprehend tone and colloquialisms. This meant that

a comment that Leximancer identified as positive might actually be a sarcastic remark meant

as a negative. We also found that the informal nature of comments was problematic, since

there were multiple ways of expressing a particular sentiment.

The data set too was limited by the individual news sites comment system. The

anonymity of contributors made it hard to clearly identify an audience members level of

involvement, unless it was explicitly mentioned in the comment. The anonymity may have


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led to audience responses phrased more assertively and argumentatively than they would

have been if they were named. The news sites also censor the time frame of the comments.

By identifying the time stamp attached to each comment, future studies could examine how

audience crises responses changed over the crises lifecycle. This would be particularly

important as it would reflect the dynamic nature of audiences crisis response (McDonald et.

al, 2009)particularly in this study where the online commentary between the audiences is a

highly interactive exchange.

Conclusion

Based on Yins (1994) case study research methods and the theoretical framework of

Weiners (1986, 1995) Attribution Theory, this research project found that managerial

decisions and union action were the two key contributing factors to the 2011 Qantas

grounding crisis. We also identified the main responsible stakeholder groups to be Alan Joyce

(Qantas management), employees, unions and the government.

Our findings have shown that the primary crisis emotion that emerged was anger, and

that this was targeted primarily towards the management and unions. This was followed by

sympathy, which empathized with the workers plights, and sorrow which was used in

relation to Qantas customers. However, contrary to expectations, support also emerged as a

dominant emotion and was expressed towards all stakeholder parties involved in the crisis.

These findings suggest that, despite the negative sentiment that has emerged from the

grounding crisis, there is still an existing group of passengers who remain loyal to the Qantas

brand. Qantas should also take a lesson from these findings in order to better safeguard the

interests of their stakeholders in future. This may include being mindful of employee moral

and considering the plight of the passengers before taking such drastic measures in the future.


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Acknowledgments

Supervisor: Lyn McDonald

Course Coordinator: Aparna Hebbani

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Public Reactions to the Qantas grounding crisis

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